What-If-Not Technique: Thoughts

In looking at the list of questions I compiled using the WIN technique, it becomes clear that one of the most pressing issues in estimation (in my opinion) is what differentiates an estimate from a wrong answer?  How can we know if our estimate is at least in the right ballpark?  Before doing this “what-if-not” I had not even thought of addressing these issues in our lesson, but they would probably be of value to discuss.  Defining what something is not (i.e. An estimation is not just a wrong answer) can illuminate what it truly is.  In this case an estimation has the chance of being correct, is designed to be as close to the real answer as possible, should be easier to compute than the actual answer, and is known to be incorrect.  In contrast, a wrong answer is thought to be correct and (presumably) takes just as long to compute as the right answer would.  Covering these points in the lesson will make sure students know to make it clear that their estimations are not actual answers, and show them that a balance between accuracy and ease of calculation should exist in estimation.

Writing out “what-if-not”’s seems useful, although time consuming, and certainly seems to facilitate thought that would otherwise be ignored.  It can lead to interesting thoughts and discussions and even possible questions for exams that will get students thinking on a more in-depth level about the topic at hand.  One of the best parts that I saw in doing this WIN strategy is that connections between other topics seem to appear out of nowhere and suddenly a topic students may have learned about and left alone for a few months can be reintroduced in a new context.  The weaknesses of this are mostly time related, both in the time I would need to spend creating these questions and the time it would take in class to go over the interesting connections I made in my line of questioning.  It would definitely deepen their understanding of a topic they already have a firm grasp of, but for students who are still struggling to understand the basic topic this addition of more questions may only add confusion to the already fuzzy concept.